How Fast Does a Compound Bow Shoot? The Honest Numbers
Flagship hunting compounds rate 330-360 fps under standardized testing, but a real hunting setup shoots 270-300 fps. Here's where the speed goes — and why the gap isn't false advertising.
By the Archery Care Editorial Team
Modern flagship hunting compounds are rated between 330 and 360 fps. The current crop — Mathews ARC 34, Hoyt Carbon RX-10, Bowtech Alliance 30, PSE Sicario Carbon FDS — clusters between 338 and 357 fps on the spec sheet.
Your arrow won't fly that fast. Not even close, usually. Rig the same bow for actual hunting — peep sight, string silencers, a 28-inch draw, a 450-grain arrow — and you're looking at 270 to 300 fps. Some setups crack 300. Plenty don't, and the deer never notices. The gap isn't false advertising; it's a standardized test colliding with the real world.
What the rating actually measures
That spec-sheet number comes from a fixed recipe: 70 pounds of draw weight, a 30-inch draw length, and a 350-grain arrow — exactly 5 grains per pound — shot off a bare string with no peep or silencers installed. Almost nobody hunts that setup. A 350-grain finished arrow is lighter than nearly any sensible hunting build, and a 30-inch draw is longer than most archers actually pull.
The terminology is a mess, too. Manufacturers usually call the number IBO speed, but the original IBO rules allowed up to 80 pounds of draw weight (plus or minus 2) with no fixed draw length, which let companies game the test. The ATA standard tightened things to 70 pounds within two-tenths of a pound and a 30-inch draw, and most published figures today are shot under those conditions whatever the label says. Treat the number as a comparison tool between bows, not a promise.
Where the speed goes
Take a bow advertised at 340 fps and watch the number shrink as you build a hunting rig. These are estimates, but they track what chronographs show over and over:
- Drop to a 29-inch draw length: roughly 325 to 330 fps
- Add a peep sight and string silencers: 315 to 320 fps
- Turn the limbs down to 60 pounds: 300 to 310 fps
- Switch to a 400-grain hunting arrow: 280 to 290 fps
Four ordinary decisions, 50 to 60 fps gone. And a 400-grain arrow is still on the light side — plenty of whitetail rigs run 450 to 500 grains, which trims a little more.
The three levers that set your real speed
Draw length is the big one, at roughly 10 fps per inch. It's also the one you don't get to choose — your wingspan decides. Measure it properly (a draw length calculator gets you close; a pro shop gets you exact), because shooting a bow set an inch too long costs you more in accuracy than any speed gain returns.
Draw weight comes second. In the walk-down above, going from 70 pounds to 60 cost about 10 to 15 fps. If you can't pull 70 pounds smoothly from a treestand in November layers, drop the weight and take the speed hit. Nobody chronographs your arrow in the field.
Arrow mass is the lever you actually get to play with. The standard rule: every 3 grains over the 5-grains-per-pound test weight costs about 1 fps, and every 3 grains added to the string costs another 1 fps — so chunky silencers and oversized D-loops aren't free either. Flip the arrow rule around and going from a 480-grain build down to 420 buys you about 20 fps. Whether you should is a different question. Light arrows fly flat but hit with less momentum and make more noise; heavy micro-diameter builds like the Easton 5mm FMJ or 4mm Axis Long Range give up speed and pay it back in penetration. For most bowhunters, heavier wins. Just re-check spine when you change point weight — a spine calculator takes a minute and saves a flier-filled afternoon.
How much speed do you actually need?
Less than the marketing implies. A 280 fps arrow with real weight behind it handles whitetails with room to spare, and bowhunters were filling tags for decades with bows far slower than anything sold today.
If raw velocity is genuinely the goal, compounds aren't even the right aisle — current crossbows run from 360 fps up to 515 on the TenPoint TRX 515. Within compounds, the math is unflattering: the scored flagships span $1,300 to $2,149, and that price gap buys carbon risers, build quality, and nicer cams far more than it buys speed. The entire spread is 19 rated fps.
So don't shop the number. A 338 fps bow you draw smoothly and shoot quietly beats a 357 fps bow with a harsh cycle every single time. Buy the draw cycle and the fit. The speed mostly takes care of itself.